Parents with students in Osterville's two elementary schools received two pieces of good news Tuesday night: The Osterville Bay School will remain open through the 2007 school year and Osterville Elementary School on Bumps River Road will move to a K-4 school once the Bay school closes.

The school committee unanimously approved those moves this week, with member Debra Dagwan absent, although not without caveats as to what it means for Osterville's elementary-age students.

The age and needs of the Bay school put it high on the school department's list of school buildings to close and sell, a process originally slated to begin at the end of the 2006 school year. But the building was then going to sit empty for a full year while the state revamped its school construction funding program.

Members of the Osterville Parent-Teachers Organization inquired about the possibility of keeping the Bay school open for that limbo year, and then have OES convert to a K-4 school. Presently, Osterville Bay and OES split grades, with kindergarten through grade 2 housed at OES and grades 3 and 4 at the Bay school.

Interim Superintendent Tom McDonald said that the district stood to save $127,000 for the 2006-'07 school year if the Bay school closed.

The issue of OES becoming a K-4 school when the Bay school closes brought a greater level of debate among committee members, some of who say it as building an expectation that may not be realistic.

School committee member Patrick Murphy spent considerable time explaining that the needs of the district will come first when considering what happens with OES. The draft capital plan has OES closing down for two years worth of renovations beginning in 2007. Murphy said that if that plan continues without interruption, the stability that parents are looking for won't exist. He added that redistricting to create a K-4 school would also have to make sense for the district, not Osterville students, first.

OES/Bay school principal Donna Lee Forloney told the committee that 41 students signed up for the Marstons Mills East Charter School, most of whom doing so to hedge their bets. Forloney said that most don't want to attend MMEHMCS, but prefer that option to the disruption of moving to another school mid-stream.

Committee member David Lawler, whose daughter attends the Osterville schools, supported and advocated for the committee to commit to the change in grade levels.

"It provides a degree of certainty... of who's going to be at that school in a few years," Lawler said. He also said that the school construction plan is contingent upon the state and that he has doubts on whether renovation funds will be ready as anticipated.